Trenton council rejects expansion of 'ShotSpotter' gunshot detection system

AP Photo/Mel EvansA small gunshot sensor, with an antenna, top right, can be seen mounted on a pole just above a camera Friday, July 20, 2007, in East Orange, N.J. The gunshot sensor triggers the camera via the control box at left. Trenton had been considering expanded use of similar technology.

TRENTON – After weeks of debate, Trenton City Council overwhelmingly rejected a $300,000 expansion of a controversial gunshot detection system at its meeting late Thursday.

The vote came after South Ward Councilman George Muschal, a former Trenton police officer, criticized the system’s failure to detect a Christmas Day shooting that left a man lying dead on a Phillips Avenue sidewalk for several hours before his body was discovered.

The ShotSpotter system has been installed over a square mile area of Trenton since 2009.

“From day one I was against the ShotSpotter,” Muschal said. “That body was shot there in the head and it stayed there for five hours with ShotSpotter being only a few blocks away. This product does not work, at least not for Trenton.”

The system would have been funded through a technology grant Trenton received from the U.S. Department of Justice. However, once the grant funds were used up in 2016 the city would’ve been responsible for paying annual maintenance fees on the system, police officials said.

A resolution approving the system’s expansion has been on and off council’s docket for the last two months. Most recently, it was pulled by top brass in the Trenton Police Department while officials tried to identify future funding sources to handle future maintenance costs.